Archive - Jul 21, 2010 - Story

The White House has released a video (in HD cause its so damn cool, and with subtitles for those immigrants among you who don't quite understand the Enlgish) for idiots who still don't grasp that Wall Street reform is nothing but a farce almost as unabashedly idiotic as the early Friday release of the Farce Test coming out of a thoroughly bankrupt Europe, which will find that of 91 banks on the old continent, only 10x bankrupt Hypo is undercapitalized, and all the Greek banks are perfectly solvent. Right. Whatever. And in keeping with the tradition of Keynesianism for Kretins (sic) released previously by the Goldman HoldCo better known as the New York Fed, the administration has now realized that the only way to touch its intellectually challenged constituency is by summarizing its achievements in cartoon format, easily viewable on an iPhone. Coming soon - "Why Shutting Down Tendentious Blogs Is Great For The Children" in 3-D IMAX. The explanation provided by the "White House" for this pathologically moronic cartoon is: "A quick and simple animated explanation of how Wall Street Reform will work and what the strongest consumer protections in history will mean for you and your family." And yes, this comes from your ruling elite.

Adrian Douglas, board member of GATA, once again takes a long hard look at the gold market and provides evidence of gold price manipulation. His conclusions: 

• the gold price is suppressed through fractional reserve bullion banking
• the gold market is selling on average 45 ounces of gold for every one ounce of real physical gold via “unallocated gold” (fractional reserve bullion banking). In other words the gold market is backed by only 2.3% gold
• The true price of physical gold is currently around $54,000/oz if fractional reserve bullion banking did not exist. In the presence of fractional reserve banking with 2.3% gold backing the market price of “gold” is reduced to $1200/oz
• The US dollar has a purchasing power that is 45 times over valued
• The way to end gold price suppression is for investors to ensure they have allocated physical bullion preferably held outside of the bullion banking system

The solution? Buy physical - "The sick joke of the Gold cartel is that whether you hold dollars or unallocated gold you only have 2.3% of gold backing! However, the trade of the century is to buy actual physical metal with your dollars, or if you have unallocated gold to demand physical delivery. In this way you can trade something with 2.3% gold backing for an investment that is 100% gold."

Nothing like the US government bailing one out for the stupidity of investing in a ponzi kabal. Earlier today, the FDIC decreed that it would increase deposit insurance for depositors in banks that failed in 2008 in the states of MO, AR, CA, FL, KS and NV. As a result of this action, 9,500 depositors would end up receiving between ten and hundred and fifty thousand dollars, courtesy of a retroactive increase in the "maximum deposit insurance amount to $250,000." The rule was made retroactive beginning January 1, 2008. Pretty soon, all money ever lost, be it in bankrupt banks, or in bed investment will be recoupable, as the administration does everything it can to get some cash - any cash - in the hands of Joe Sixpack.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 21/07/10

A year ago, Associated Press reporter Larry Margasak got caught
in a lie. He manufactured a false lede by concealing critical
information:

Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent
Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP
mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the
official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony.

The witness also recanted his statement. When asked a second time
if he told Dodd that he was getting special treatment, he said, "I don't
remember... but, you know, it was conveyed in some way, shape or form."
No honest journalist would report that Dodd was "told from the start,"
about a mortgage discount.

Last night we referenced an article by the WSJ which essentially confirmed that the death knell for the rating agencies is being rung. Today, China proves that the best time to kick a body (or a rating agency) is just after it has been shot in the back of the head and before it is begins stinking up the place. And in doing so, it has officially put a stake in for the role of primary global credit rater, citing China's unique role as the world's primary creditor. Of course, if that were to occur, the US rating may promptly be impacted just a tad more than the record 2 Years and just below record 10 Years would suggest is agreeable. As was posted previously, Dagong already issued a rating grid in which China, not at all surprisingly, came on top of both the US and UK, neither of which has any possibility of paying back the trillions and trillions of debt accumulated over the years. Now whether China would be willing to suicide itself and junk the US, is a different question.

Matt Simmons shares some startling revelations in his latest Bloomberg TV interview, in which he says none of the propaganda matters on TV 24/7 (photoshopped or not) as the ultimate clean up cost will likely be well over $1 trillion, and a result he is unconcerned about his BP short. He ultimately see the stock going down to $1. What Simmons alleges however is far more startling and audacious: that this is a joint cover up effort between the administration and BP, in which both entities keep throwing sand in the eyes of observers while distracting everyone from the matter at hand: "What we don’t know anything about is the open hole which is caused by
the drill bit when it tossed the blow-out preventer way out of the
hole…and 120,000/day minimum of toxic poison has now covered the floor of
the Gulf of Mexico. So what they’re talking about is the biggest
environmental cover-up ever. And they knew that that well, that riser,
would finally deplete. And then they could say it’s over." On blaming the catastrophe on Transocean: "For two days they kept saying it’s a rig fire. When the rig sank they
could no longer call it a rig fire. It’s a riser leak…Because if they
said the truth they would all go to jail." The conclusion: "Unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico."

Once again stocks refuse to deal with reality, as the 10 Year has plunged to a shocking 2.88%. The treasury-bond convergence trade beckons again as stocks are about 10 points rich, with an ES fair value of about 1,055. Sell stocks, and sell the 10 Year.

Those interested in the latest compendium of mendacious vomitus emanating from the primary orifice of the Fed chairman for about 4 hours can do so here (C-Span) or here (Closed Circuit senate camera where the interns whisper off to the side).Oh, and that rumor about the Excess Reserve interest rate cut was total premeditated BS as expected.

Bill Miller says: "U.S. large capitalization stocks represent a once in a lifetime opportunity in my opinion to buy the best quality companies in the world at bargain prices. The last time they were this cheap relative to bonds was 1951." That's funny, because according to our regression analysis (recreated below), the fair value of stocks is 750. But who needs facts when you have propaganda and a massively underwater stock position to offload. Bill Miller's desperation letter to sucker mom and pops in buying his dangling tech holdings can be found below, but here is a quick refutation of his point, which we discussed as recently as three weeks ago. And just in case there is any confusion, the dividend yield on the S&P compared to that of 10 Year Bonds, implies a fair value for the S&P of... 655! Perhaps Bill was experiencing a "Warren Buffett" moment and actually meant stocks are a once in a lifetime opportunity to short?

A week ago we published a guest post from David Galland of Casey's Daily Dispatch in which Galland presented his view on what the consequences of the upcoming introduction of a 1099-filing requirement for gold transactions over $600 would be. "Can’t a person just keep their gold purchases under $600? With the price
of gold heading higher, that will increasingly require buying
smaller-denomination bullion coins – which typically carry a higher
premium. More importantly, a large body of case law gives the government
license to charge people for “structuring” – i.e., taking active
measures to get around a particular law. Thus, two $500 gold purchases
could be construed as active evasion and carry additional penalties." The topic is suddenly red hot once again, this time with ABC finally getting on the bandwagon. 

Another rogue algo takes matters into its own binary hands. Time to institute circuit breakers for the tiny FX market, which alone celebrated Obama's latest set of oratory delight by flash crashing all on its lonesome...

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 21/07/10

Barack Obama: "No more taxpayer funded bailouts of Wall Street Institutions"

Reuters: "Increased housing
commitments swelled U.S. taxpayers' total support for the
financial system by $700 billion in the past year to around
$3.7 trillion, a government watchdog said on Wednesday."

We are happy to know that the government's support of bankrupt Fannie and Freddie ends today, as per Obama's promise to the entire nation.